A Google Chrome OS slate could launch on Black Friday

If we're to believe the rumor mill, a Google-branded, Chrome OS-powered slate device will venture forth onto store shelves this coming Black Friday—that's November 26, if you haven't already marked the date on your calendar. The news comes to us from Download Squad, which bases its story on an anonymous source.

Download Squad says HTC will manufacture the device, and Google will offer it in collaboration with Verizon. On the hardware side of things, the Google slate could be relatively well-endowed:

It'll likely be based on NVidia's Tegra 2 platform and sport a 1280x720 multitouch display, 2GB of RAM, minimum 32GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/3G connectivity, GPS, webcam, and possibly expandable storage via a multi-card reader. Expect it to be every bit as geek-tastic as the Nexus One -- Google won't want to disappoint its early adopters.

Evidence definitely points to Chrome OS hitting the streets this fall. The folks at 1UP broke the news on Monday that the Chrome Web Store is "set to launch this October." From what I can tell, the service will have much in common with the Android Market and iTunes App Store, just with web applications instead of native software.

Thanks to the UI concepts Google posted on the Chromium Projects site a while back, we have an idea of what the rumored Chrome OS slate could look like: a big, iPad-like contraption with a web browser for a home screen. Of course, if the price is right—and it could be, if Verizon subsidizes the thing—that might be all shoppers need to sate their impulse buy, er, impulses.